Noisy GP4

I've suddenly developed an irritating scratchy noise when playing GP4. It only happens when I go racing. The music is fine, etc. At times when sitting in the pits with the engine running, there is no noise, all seems fine, when I leave the pits, it starts. It gets very bad when you go off the track. I've also noticed that the sound quality varies. At times the volume is right down, then it's back to its normal level but only on certain speakers. This seems to have surfaced since installing the patch. I've sinced removed the piece of trash.
I've completely re-installed the original game, (twice) and tried almost everything I can think off, to no avail. I have an AMD Athlon 1,2Gig, 256Mb memory, GeForce 64Mb video card and a XWave 5.1 sound card. I've run GP4 on this system for the past 4 months or so, so I don't think its a hardware problem. Could there be someting in the patch which did not un-install? Any help would be great. All other games have no problems at all.

"XWave 5.1 sound card"

Is this the SB live series?

I know alot of people who have this noise with this card - i have two, in two different comps on two different OS, and both make the noise

I havent found drivers that fix my problem yet either

Dont ask SB about it - they claim the problem doesnt exsist




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

have you looked at directx? did you run regclean to remove any redundant registry entries that may have been placed by the patch? do a search on sound probs, I think that this has been seen before.

Ellis he says it ran before, so it can't be the card He says "I've suddenly developed an irritating scratchy noise......" hmmmmm, I thought card or drivers myself but he says it ran before so there's not a lot to go on really I would beg, borrow or steal another card and then test again.

It sounds like the exact problem others have with this card tho, thats why i said it




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

yes I know, and you could even be right too

Yeah, but the problem wasnt there before

See, i clean installed 98, and had the problem with that card, with lots of different drivers

I clean installed XP home - same prob

I clean installed XP Pro - same problem

I eventually went back to my old SB card

SB claim this problem doesnt exsist, altho theres no other way to expalin it considering i tried it with fresh OS on different M'Boards and different machines

I dont understand that card!




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

I used to get that with gp3. Someone had changed sample rate conversion to low, and fiddled with the sound settings

I used to get that with gp3. Someone had changed sample rate conversion to low, and fiddled with the sound settings

Yup, cleaned up the reg and removed the patch info which was still on there. Didn't help. Also ran directx tests, etc. no problems. I'll borrow another card and test that. Finding updated drivers for this X-Wave 7000 is almost impossible. If the other card solves the problem, I'll dump it. Thanks for the suggestions.

Apparently this card was made by Yamaha, but most places I go to on the net have either stooped making the card, or are no longer supplying updates, etc. It appears to be a bit of a dark horse. I reinstalled all the drivers on the card. Also reinstalled GP4 again. One thing I noticed is, after installing GP4 again, I looked at the setting GP4 did for sound. It showed 3D sound with multi speakers. I ran calibrate sound again while in GP4 and it took away 3D sound and multi speakers. It would then only let me select 2D sound. Did'nt help the problem though. The sound level, while in game mode, also goes up and down, and behaves almost like it needs more memory, you, jerky like. I don't have freezing problems with the game or anything like that.
I think this is, as you guys say, a funny card. Maybe I must cut my losses and get a SB card? Thanks anyway for your suggestions

Buy a cheap SB Live! card. Pick them up new or used at ridiculously good prices.

"Buy a cheap SB Live"

SB Live is the problem tho! The card is made rather badly, support is pathetic since they just claim theres no problems and no drivers make any difference!

Try anything but it!




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

Then buy a different kind of SBLive? :P

My SBLive 5.1 had no trouble whatsoever, and it was very definitely Creative-made.

Some people have it working, but others dont

I really cant belive the comapny refuses to admit theres a problem with the cards tho




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

Hmm I didn't know i double posted.

I have a SBlive card in my other computer. Didn't notice the crackling till you pointed it out. It's annoying me now.

I have learned to block it out :P




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

I have the SB Live! Value, probably the cheapest version, and have not experienced that problem.

Tried a borrowed card this weekend and the noise has gone. Wierd that it only started after a long period of time.
Also funny that the problem only occurs in GP4? Never thought I'd say, as I've been a full supporter of the GP series from GP1, but it seems the more involved they get, the less able they are to set it right....... Pity

Thanks again to all the suggestions and help.
Maybe the suggestion from someone to give the game to you guys to sort out is not too far-fetched.... Judging by some of the work put out by this forum and others like it, you'd take a good game and turn it into a GREAT!!! game

I dont think its just GP4

Try another racing game

I found it happens when u have a long "droning" noise like an engine




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps